Flagg Ales Brewday

[Galena]

So, this being my second ever brew and my first attempt at All Grain I thought I may as well record it here, for posterity if nothing else. I'm not sure how these things go but here goes.

Old Hooky Clone (Graham Wheeler)
Target: OG 1.045 FG 1.008 ABV 4.9% IBU 33 EBC 31
Batch Size 21L, Boil time 60 mins

Im not too fussed as long as it is the general vein of an Old Hooky not going for an exact replica

Ingredients:
3Kg Maris Otter Pale
400g Flaked Maize
200g Extra Dark Crystal
70g Black
330g Sugar

Hops:
30g Challenger at 60
12g Fuggles at 10 (messed up and added at 15)
5g EKG 4 Day dry hop addition

Yeast: Safale SO4 (would have gone with WLP002 if it had arrived)

I have an outhouse I have had no idea what to do with since moving here 4 years ago. That was until I took up home brewing, now I have a small Brewhouse, no running water or drains otherwise just fine. It will need fitting out better though with storage, extractor fan etc at some point but I have to stop spending money for a bit

The Fullhorn works quite well with a BIAB method and I had bought the optional made to measure bag for this purpose. I brought the full 30 litres to 80 degrees and dropped half of this into a pre-warmed HLT having given the entire water a campden tablet and some salts for water treatment.

Although BIAB is often no sparge I wanted to do this so went with a rudimentary sparging by draining the mash tun and sparging through a bit out of a pressure cooker. Because my tubing didnt fit my HLT

The boil went well with no dramas at hot break

Maintaining mash temperature is quite easy on the Fullhorn although it can read 1 or 2 degrees under but having 1600w and 900w gives the option of 2500w for fast heating, 900w for mash and 1600w for a good rolling boil.

Added half a Whirfloc at 5 mins and then cooled to 18 degrees.
OG was a bit higher than target at 1.048 at 20 degrees.
Quantity in the FV was about 1 litre over target at 22L
The wort tastes rather nice as it is.
Fermentation vessel put in fridge controlled by Inkbird
4 days at 17 degrees
1 day at 18 degrees
9 days at 19 degrees
Not sure what that will do but that is my plan.
Cant wait to taste it now

 

[foxbat]

That's a nice looking brew house with loads of space for all your kit. Good to hear you had an easy brewday with a solid GW recipe.

 

[Clint]

Looking good!
Whirfloc at 5...? Not criticism just wondering...normal add at 15...

 

[foxbat]

Looking good!
Whirfloc at 5...? Not criticism just wondering...normal add at 15...

15 might risk denaturing the Carageenan. I add at 7 mins.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Looks good, i love my fullhorn your bang on about temp but you soon get the hang off it

 

[Rodcx500z]

I use a digital thermometer as well as i found it hotter near the bottom were the temp probe is i just give the mash a gentle stir and take a reading

 

[Clint]

Interesting...a lot of recipes..add Irish moss etc at 15...

 

[Rodcx500z]

I use whirlfloc at 10 mins

 

[Galena]

Looking good!
Whirfloc at 5...? Not criticism just wondering...normal add at 15...

My reason is because John Palmer says of Whirfloc "Do not boil longer than 5 minutes" for reason stated by Foxbat above

 

[Galena]

I use a digital thermometer as well as i found it hotter near the bottom were the temp probe is i just give the mash a gentle stir and take a reading

Yes that's what I do :)

 

[Galena]

That's a nice looking brew house with loads of space for all your kit. Good to hear you had an easy brewday with a solid GW recipe.

Thanks, yes just beginning to get organised.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Two comments on GW recipe
1. He loves adding sugar, I would replace it with pale malt (someone here will know the equivalent amount).
2. Use Crystal 55L rather than extra dark.

 

[Galena]

Two comments on GW recipe
1. He loves adding sugar, I would replace it with pale malt (someone here will know the equivalent amount).
2. Use Crystal 55L rather than extra dark.

Thanks, he does seem to add sugar with most recipes yes and I did wonder why. I think my Crystal was dark rather than extra dark as stated because I couldn't get the extra dark but as it was a custom recipe from Geterbrewed I can't check now.

Whilst the GW book is good and seems like a useful guide to emulating certain beers I find it a bit lacking in certain areas, in particular yeast, I understand he may not have wanted to specify a yeast because he may not know a commercial brewers yeast, or there is no access to it but he must have used yeast to get his 'likeness' so he should be able to suggest a style of yeast at least.

Greg Hughes and John Palmer both suggest yeast strains in their recipes and John Palmer even gives a recommended water profile.

 

[Galena]

Four days in, upped the temperature to 18 degrees and checked gravity at 1.020, a bit concerned about that seeing as my last brew fermented out in 4 days but I will give it another week and check gravity again. I can't afford to check every day or I'll have nothing left to drink

 

[Galena]

Old Hooky Development Brew Batch 01 - 9th July 2017
Moving on from the brew above which was pretty much following the Wheeler recipe for Old Hooky as it is and choosing Safale SO4 I decided to slowly try and develop this recipe, or at least try some variables and see which is the most to my liking.
The plan was to try and cutout the addition of sucrose to the recipe and have my first go with a liquid yeast, I chose WLP002 which in hindsight may leave it a little sweet but that is what I have, though since making the starter I now have WLP005 and WLP013 but that is for another brew on another day.

Anyway I could see the sinilarity between Wheelers recipe and the Roger Protz Almanac which with ingredients apparently provided by the brewer also included sucrose, it also included Mild Malt which Wheeler did not but as I have no Mild Malt that also will be for another day.

I messed around with the formulation but trying to get the OG and ABV the same proved impossible and I realised with the WLP002 I was not going to get down to 1.008 but decided to go with the 1.012 and aim for the right ABV of 4.6% but to do this I had to include some sucrose, I could not get it on target without.
Hook Norton don't use Black malt and Wheeler does, I suspect to get the colour as its such a small amount and I ended up using a few grams though had tried to do without to get closer to the brewery recipe.

But all that can be jiggled around with for the next batch, this one at least will compare WLP002 with SO4 (which incidentally has stuck at 1.020 on my last brew and now trying to get it moving again)

Recipe:
Batch Volume (Fermenter) 10 Litres

Fermentables
1.7Kgs Muntons Maris Otter
200g Flaked Maize
150g Crisp Crystal Medium
110g Unrefined table sugar (added to the boil at 10 mins to go)
30g Crisp Black

Hops
13g Challenger at 60
8g Fuggle at 10
5g EKG Dry hop for 4 days
1/2 Whirfloc at 5

Water additions
To achieve water profile of Ca:150, Mg:10, Na:50, Cl:134, SO4:203, HCO3:122
1/2 Campden Tablet
2.5g Baking Soda
4.3g CaCl2
1.2g Epsom Salts
4.4g Gypsum

Yeast WLP002 4 days at 18deg, 1 day at 19deg, 9 days at 20deg

Brewday: All went pretty well, BIAB with the Klarstein Fullhorn, 9 litres mash water, 8 litres sparge.
The only issue was not having a magnet to get the stir bar out of the flask which made it a bit messy.

Checked the brew fridge this morning and she is bubbling away quite strongly.

 

[Galena]

English IPA
So today we brew a 10 litre batch of English IPA based on the Greg Hughes recipe with a couple of minor changes, those being using MO malt and WLP005 instead of Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale.
This is to be a brew to use as a standard to start developing it to how I like it.

Targets: OG: 1.060 FG:1.016 EBC: 17.3 ABV: 5.8% Mash pH 5.26

2.7 Kgs Muntons MO 97.9%
59g Crystal Medium 2.1%
21g Challenger @ 60
11g EKG @ 15
12g EKG @ Flameout with 20 minute hopstand

Yeast WLP005

Water Profile: Ca 133, Mg10, Na 8, Cl 76, SO4 266, HCO3 43

Water Treatment: 6g Gypsum, 2.2g CaCl, 1.2g Epsom Salts, 0.5ml Lactic Acid

 

[Galena]

The Brewday went quite well, my pre-boil volume was spot on at 14 litres. Mash pH was higher than my target of 5.26 and I only managed 5.56, it has been something I have been struggling to get right. I added another 0.5ml lactic acid and after the boil my pH was around 5.4, something I need to work on.

I wa slightly overf my OG at 1.065 so added 0.8 litres pre-boiled water which brought it down to 1.061, I reckon that's good enough for a job in the country.

The main problem I had was sludge blocking up the bazooka when draining off to the FV. I have not had this problem before and I ended up having to stick my hand in (after dipping in Starsan) so I am hoping for a clean fermentation. I didn't think this was supposed to happen with BIAB and it hasn't previously so perhaps my Muntons pre crushed Maris Otter is just too fine. I will have to boil without the bazooka for the next brew.

Rigged up a rudimentary sparging 'system'

Pitched the WLP005 from the starter made 3 days earlier

 

[Galena]

Bottling day - Old Hooky (Wheeler)
I quite enjoy bottling, its a bit messy and yes I am new to brewing so this novelty will probably wear off, but it's the final task before drinking.
So I finally bottled the Old Hooky Clone (Wheeler Recipe) today, the one with the stuck or very slow fermentation, it doesn't taste bad but I'm not a good judge of flat beer from the FV. This was so slow my second development batch of this is almost ready to bottle as well so at least I'll be able to sample them side by side.

 

[Galena]

Flagg Ales - Best Bitter

So today I made my first attempt at a Best Bitter, this was going to be a single hop beer using only Fuggle hops and was a 15L batch

Recipe

Targets: OG 1.048, FG 1.012 ABV 4.3% EBC 17.5 IBU: 39

Fermentables
2.7Kgs 88% Muntons Maris Otter
123g 4% Amber malt
123g Crystal medium
123g Malted Wheat

Hops
35g Fuggle 4.5% @ 60
18g Fuggle 4.5% @ 15
57g Fuggle 20 minute hopstand @ 80 degrees

0.5 Whirfloc @ 5 mins

Yeast WLP013

Fermentation 4 days at 19 deg. 1 day at 20 deg. 9 days at 21 deg.

Water Profile along the lines of Burton on Trent
Ca 187, Mg 41, Na 39, Cl 86, SO4 481, HCO3 95

Additions
3.2g Baking Soda, 3.5g CaCl, 8.9g Epsom Salts, 12.5g Gypsum

All went well but was bit short on my OG at 10 mins to go so added a little DME and ended up going over with an OG of 1.048

This time using the Fullhorn I tried a manual re circulation using a jug and occasional stirring which seemed to keep the mash temperature more stable and I settled on 63 deg on the display to get 66 deg on the hand held probe.
Dropped into bucket and batch sparged at 76 deg filtering back into the kettle.
Boiled for 60 mins using the BIAB bag emptied of malt to hop into rather than using muslin bags which always seem restrictive. This seemed to work well.
Pitched the yeast starter into wort at 19 degrees.

 

[Galena]

The Good and the Bad, a brewday of two sides

Yesterday I brewed a 10L batch of (Almost) SMASH Blonde Ale, with Citra Hops.

The Good; by re-circulating my wort and stirring the mash regularly, paying closer attention to maintaining temperature and by perhaps a better method of carrying out my batch sparge I managed to get a mash efficiency of 82% according to Brewfather. Up from around 70% previously

The Bad; Because my efficiency was so high my post boil SG was also high and without thinking I added the 2.7 litres calculated by Brewfather to get down to the target of 1040. This worked and my OG was bang on 1.040 but I hadn't paused to consider adding such a drastic quantity of water would bring my target IBU down from 21 to 14 and less importantly my blonde would be even more blonde. I wish I had stuck with the higher gravity now.

More Bad; I forgot to add the half Whirfloc tablet

So all things considered, I'm not sure how boring this beer will be but it is bubbling away quite merrily this morning, at least it was only 10 litres (well 11 actually as I overshot that as well ffs)